Description
Book SynopsisHow do intimate relationships reveal, reflect, enable, or enact the social and political dimensions of imperial projects? In
Colonial Intimacies, Erika Pérez probes everyday relationships, encounters, and interactions to show how intimate choices about marriage, social networks, and godparentage were embedded in larger geopolitical concerns.
Trade ReviewWith careful documentation, nuance, and
corazán, Erika Pérez brings fresh perspectives to the study of colonialism's reflection in the day-to-day - how gendered bonds of intimacy cut across race, ethnicity, class, and generation. In this account, indigenous women are actors in their own right, especially in their relationships with Spanish-Mexican women who were both conquerors and
comadres. A gem of historical scholarship!"" - Vicki L. Ruiz, author of
From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century America""Erika Pérez tells a not-so-familiar story of how the most intimate of human relations could grease the wheels of California's successive colonialisms, grind them to a halt, or send them spinning in new directions.
Colonial Intimacies is the result of staggering research in a wide range of primary sources covering more than a century in the lives of Spanish-Mexican, Indigenous, and bicultural peoples. Full of sumptuous detail and insight into the most quotidian aspects of a colonial world, it interrogates fully both accommodating and resistant responses to colonialism. California history won't ever be the same."" - Susan Lee Johnson, author of
Roaring Camp: The Social World of the California Gold Rush
